Waymo is a company that is very similar to ride-share companies Uber and Lyft, with one key difference; Waymo doesn’t use any drivers. Instead of a human, artificial intelligence or A.I. is what drives their cars. While self-driving cars may seem recent, self-driving cars have been in the works for a long time, with Waymo’s first fully automated car hitting the streets in 2015. By 2020, Waymo was offering fully autonomous rides in Phoenix, Arizona, and just a year later, Waymo brought them to San Francisco. In 2022, Waymo became one of the first ride-hailing services to have a fully automated car take someone to select airports.
That being said,with something new, there’s a small adjustment period. Mike Johns ordered a Waymo to take him to the Sky Harbor International airport in Phoenix, Arizona. Once he arrived at the airport the car began driving in circles around the parking lot. Johns shared a video of this experience on LinkedIn. Later, Johns shared on CNN that Waymo detected the problem and contacted him through the car’s system to help him stop the car. This experience would most likely never occur if there was a real human behind the wheel, and helps to serve as a reminder that A.I. still needs humans to help manage them and correct any problems that may arise. While mistakes like this do happen, Waymo does have a relatively good driving record: for every million miles of driving there is one crash resulting in injury according to Waymo.
Ride-hailing companies like Uber and Lyft rely on human drivers, whose performances may vary due to various factors like distraction, exhaustion, or even driving under the influence. A self-driving car will not be affected by the same issues that could cause a human driver to make a mistake. While most riders who use companies like Uber don’t experience any problems with their driver, it only takes a quick search online to find documented instances of unsafe situations and creepy drivers. Eliminating the human interaction piece of a ride-hailing app may be a good way to make a sometimes unpleasant experience better.
While the idea of self-driving cars may still seem very futuristic to many people, companies just like Waymo are helping to making it a reality. One of Waymo’s goals is to help reduce traffic accidents and fatalities. By removing human drivers Waymo is attempting to make safer streets and reduce accidents. Waymo offers rides in select cities throughout the country, with plans to expand to more cities in the near future.
